


Miscalculation

by curtailed



Category: The Order of the Stick
Genre: M/M, Revised AU, Slow Burn, Trauma, Unequal Pairings, crackfic, spoilers for all canon material
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:13:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24727300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curtailed/pseuds/curtailed
Summary: Following his resurrection at the hands of his leader, Jirix finds himself as an unwitting pinball in a series of manipulations, deceit, and a mess of emotions.
Relationships: Redcloak/Jirix
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After writing out the first few chapters I am made staggeringly aware of the other story with the same beginning premise. (It's a great if short read, btw). I swear on my littlest finger that I did not intend to copy or plagiarize in any way, and that I only discovered the fic today.
> 
> With that being said, I am 100% sure our stories will diverge (since the other hasn't been updated). As usual, if you would like to preserve OOTS as the best webcomic existent on the web, don't read further. If you want to disabuse of that notion, go right ahead.
> 
> (I'm in no way abandoning Solicited! I just wanted to etch out the ideas for this new-ish story).

The pain came slowly, then all at once.

It hit him. It him him where he was, sprawled across the stone floor, staring up at a blurred patch of green as torchlight flickered around him. The pain came swiftly, suddenly, seizing up his limbs for a terrifying second, and his heart clenched in a desperate attempt to breathe. It was like being electrified by a lightning bolt. A swarm of dizzying colors and senses and lights flashed off in his head, as if someone had struck hard against his skull. The ground was ice underneath him. His fingers scrabbled at the stone, trying to find purchase.

Reflexively he tried to sit up, his arms wrenching painfully to support his upper weight. His mind felt blanked out. All he remembered was some sort of endless field, thousands and thousands of silhouettes merging ahead of him -- and someone else, some enormous presence, the mere thought of which made his head throb again. His chest felt raw. 

"You're up," a voice stated flatly.

Jirix jerked himself to a sitting position in surprise, almost toppling over in his haste.

His leader showed no sign of shock. Jirix had to blink again, making sure it wasn't some trick of light -- but no, he wasn't seeing things. Bloodied strips of bandages were wrapped around Redcloak's right eye, and as he watched, a few drops slid down to his neck.

It made him instinctively want to reach out, healing magic already buzzing to his fingertips, but the other goblin was already crouching before him. 

"You got stabbed here." Redcloak -- and it still felt weird calling him that, but Jirix didn't know what else to say -- pointed at Jirix's chest, strangely businesslike. He was rarely emotive, but even now he felt more withdrawn than usual. "The lightning mostly fried your spine and head, so that's why the rest of your limbs aren't in shape yet. It should recover soon." He stood up then, the flicker of the rift's light slanting across his armour, making his face hard to read.

"...stabbed?"

"That's what I said."

Jirix stood up as quickly as he could, leaning on the wall when his legs threaten to give away. "Sir, wait, I don't understand -- "

"The prisoner." Redcloak pointed to the empty parts of the cage. "He's gone. He and the elf are both gone. The tower's absolutely trashed, the defenses must have been breached, and Xykon's phylactery -- "

He paused, his tone tight.

" _Lord_ Xykon," he corrected quietly, and Jirix felt a slight jolt of shock from hearing the title. Redcloak rarely spoke of his own boss at all, and had never called him _lord_ before. "The phylactery's been lost in the sewers."

Jirix watched his leader's fist curl, ever so slightly, and let the implications of his master's words sink into him.

"Sir, if his -- _thing_ \-- is lost, then he's -- "

"Absolutely furious." Redcloak's voice sounded like he could not care less. "Refresh your spells. I'll call you up later."

And with that, the Supreme Leader disappeared down the stairs, leaving him behind in silence.

.

.

.

"You've never been in a war, have you?"

Jirix knew the voice from anywhere, but to have it speak so close to him made him almost lose concentration on the healing spell. His hands shook a little when he turned to the speaker.

"S-sir, are you -- "

"Talking to you, yes." The Supreme Leader was a lot younger than he had expected, but nothing about his body language suggested any timidness. If it had been anyone else, Jirix would have thought him as simply another goblin a few years younger than him, but something about the Leader's stance suggested that would be a monumentally terrible idea. "How are you holding up?"

"...what?"

The battlefield was silent. Jirix knew whatever vision he was looking through, it was irredeemably false -- the battefield of Azure City that day had been utterly chaotic, with arrows and stones and flames tearing violently through the air, the screams and shouts and clangs of metal echoing miles and miles, but here it was absolute stillness. Somewhere in the real world, his knees ached from kneeling on solid stone, but in his vision Redcloak was simply standing there, watching the catapults creak, load, release. Battered ruins of the city's walls crashed soundlessly onto the ground.

"I'm...I don't know," Jirix stammered, slightly flustered at how quickly his tongue tied up. The Supreme Leader looked like any other goblin, even if his skin was green, but something about the way he observed Azure City sent chills down Jirix's spine. He looked almost bored, like he was watching a stray cloud pass in the sky. "I haven't fought a non-goblinoid before. I don't know."

"You haven't killed, then?"

"No, I -- " Jirix wasn't sure where the question was leading. "Not...intentionally, sir. I don't think."

"Never even for self-defense?"

"I...hadn't had the opportunity."

The Supreme Leader said nothing to that.

The real world bled slowly back into his senses. For the longest time Jirix knelt there, feeling the surge of spells thrum through his bones, and stared around in his study. Sometimes his prayers showed him other things; glimpses of... _something._ He didn't know what. It was sometimes of a village burning, or a cup shattering, or someone falling. Right now, though, he didn't know what to make of what he had seen. It couldn't have been the past --

_could it?_

And it couldn't have been of the future. Azure City had fallen. They had won.

The Supreme Leader had won.

Jirix watched the rift pulse in the sky, somehow feeling worse after the prayer than before.


	2. Chapter 2

It became an unspoken rule not to enter the topmost chamber.

Jirix heeded it easily enough, considering it had been where he had died, but for a few days afterward he saw several soldiers moving in and out of the level. The prisoner hadn't possess much, apart from the clothes he wore, but the parts of the cage were removed and the wall was slowly being sealed. He sometimes heard the construction even in the limits of his own study. 

It wasn't merely construction that had the entire tower on edge, though -- Jirix couldn't pinpoint exactly what was the malaise, but a sickly sort of static had layered over the walls and ceilings like a particularly invisible mould. Barely anyone talked. He was used to hearing the Monster -- or whatever it was -- chatting animatedly away with any person that had the misfortune to walk by, but even it remained quiet in the aftermath. He saw it wandering around with the umbrella, for once not saying much, and it only added onto his unease. 

By the third day he was ready to admit what had been bugging his mind the entire time: his leader hadn't said a word. The guards he asked around had reported they hadn't seen any sign of their Supreme Leader. He hadn't been spotted among the sewer teams, or the ground patrol, or even the inner tower defense. Rarely had Redcloak retreated into his study the past months -- Jirix could count the number of times it happened on one hand -- but now it was a daily occurrence, and it did little to assauge his doubts. 

"Why don't you just knock on his door, sir?"

The first sewer to be inspected should be the one with the direct route to the bay. He knew a hobgoblin that had taken a level of Rogue recently; he jotted down a reminder to seek him out as soon as possible. Maybe any stonework craftsman to inspect the sturdiness of the tunnels. He didn't hear the question until it was repeated from his study's threshold.

"What?"

The hobgoblin soldier shifted on his feet. "I mean, he's in his study, and he hasn't gone out in days. You're the highest-ranking officer after him. Sir," he added.

He was, Jirix supposed. In a way. It didn't make much sense to him, since he didn't even have any legitimate power to back him up -- but he wasn't about to question the Supreme Leader's decisions. Still, the thought of knocking on the study made him feel on edge.

"Maybe later. Why'd you come here?"

"Miss Tsukiko said there was a meeting."

It probably had something to do with the Resistance. The hallways were quiet, which was something Jirix had to get used to, and a series of stone steps winded up to the eastern chamber. Meetings were rare enough that he had to take a moment to remember where exactly the room was. Left door, three from the corridor entrance; the room was spacier than the allocation of doors would suggest, if still bare.

It was the least-kept secret in the tower that his leader and Tsukiko absolutely loathed each other, but Tsukiko only nodded to him -- in a civil, if cold manner -- when he took his seat at a long wooden table. Four wights stared back at him impassively with red, red eyes. Two of them had been human corpses; the other two had been hobgoblins. All four surrounded Tsukiko close enough that they would touch her if she moved her arms a little. Jirix adjusted his seat a few inches farther from her. Two other seats remained: a typical chair close to his own, and what looked like a throne made of bones at the far end.

Jirix coughed a little before speaking. "Is it just us two?"

"No."

"...okay." He wasn't sure what else to say. Tsukiko had propped her feet up on the table edge, humming something off-key under her breath. A single window had been cut into the wall, and stripes of flickering purple light splayed across the room. It made him feel a little queasy. 

"Is it about the Resistance?"

"What?"

"The meeting."

"Beats me." Tsukiko shrugged, turning a ring over and over in her fingers. "One of my babies just told me about it an hour ago. I'm leaving in five if no one else shows up."

It was back to the silence. He resisted the urge to tap his foot or his fingers -- Tsukiko probably didn't care enough about him to kill him, but he wouldn't bet against her wights doing so. He kept quiet instead. He couldn't say he liked her, but there had been worse company in his life.

The door opened.

The surprise of seeing his leader almost made Jirix topple of his chair, but he managed to stay still, trying not to display his own shock across his face. Redcloak looked the same as he always did, with the exception of an eyepatch over what used to be his right eye. He might have looked more exhausted, but Jirix didn't have the opportunity to observe before his leader sat down on the seat next to his.

Tsukiko had no such reservations. "Wow, nice eyepatch. I think it suits you."

The last time there had been a meeting, it had ended with both of them snapping at each other like dire wallabies. Jirix glanced at Redcloak, unsure what his leader would say. Redcloak had pulled out a stack of papers and piled them on the surface of the table, remaining quiet.

"No commentary for once?"

"Unless it helps me devise a proper sewer search, then no." His leader casually flipped through a page. 

"Over what?"

His leader's mouth tensed.

"What are we searching for, hmm? Might've slipped my mind these past few days."

Jirix was slightly thrown-off when Redcloak turned to him, not much emotion showing on his face. "Jirix. I assumed you planned out something, right?"

"Geez, you're a sack of fun." Tsukiko rolled her eyes before leaning forward, resting on her elbows. "I've did a cursory search of the closest water filter system already. You're not going to have any luck finding the phylactery here."

"Sir," Jirix said, his throat dry, "I was thinking of the route to the bay. It's the widest one near the tower."

"It's also one of the most contaminated," his leader cut in flatly. "We'd have to detoxify the water first before sending down soldiers, unless we want them to wound up as poisoned paste. We could prepare the spells, but it'd still take a lot of time."

"Why not just make a wall of stone at the exit and call it a day?" Tsukiko said, sounding almost bored. 

Jirix couldn't really call it a glare, but it was the closest thing to what Redcloak directed at the theurge. "If you also want to cut off one of the main water supply channels, then I highly suggest not carrying out the idea."

"What's the big deal? We can just make water."

"And what are the soldiers going to get theirs? The local rain? We don't have enough clerics for -- "

"They're _soldiers._ They're not going anywhere. Do you want the phylactery to be found or not?"

"I am not willing to risk a dozen lives just for some -- "

"For some _what?_ "

Xykon stood at the end of the table, casually standing behind his throne.

Jirix hadn't even noticed when the sorcerer had appeared. Tsukiko gasped a little before hiding her mouth behind her hand. Next to him, Redcloak broke off, saying nothing, but his shoulders had tensed up as if in reflex. Even the wights appeared concerned; they huddled closer to their mistress, their fangs bared very slightly.

There wasn't much to his leader's master, not at first glance -- he was just a skeleton, one with a misshapen crown, and yet -- the air held its breath, even as the room felt electrified. The tension was thick, roiling in the air like heavy steam.

With the casualness of someone sharpening a sword, Xykon sat down on the throne, bony fingers scraping against the armrest. 

"You didn't finish your sentence, Red-eye. What were you going to say?"

Jirix didn't know the details on what had happened, but he knew better than to ask. Redcloak stared back at the lich, fingers tight against the surface of the table. One second. Two. Three, and a dark red glow seemed to emanate from the very depths of the skull. 

Four. Five.

"Tsukiko and I were discussing how to retrieve your phylactery," his leader said, his voice betraying none of the tightness. "We had some disagreements."

Another second of silence. 

"Disagreements. Really."

Jirix had the vague sense that his leader wasn't exactly willing to elaborate further. "That's what I said, yes."

"So why isn't anything happening, then? Why are you still sitting here, dragging your feet around?"

"Sir, I don't think going in blindly will help -- "

There were no sudden movements or expletives; Xykon simply stood up from his throne, leaning over the table. The only warning Jirix got was his leader's single eye widening before cold, brutal phalanges closed around his own throat, half-hoisting him up in the air. His knee banged onto the edge of the table violently. It wasn't a complete cutoff of air, but the pressure made him blink in and out of unconsciousness. He struggled to speak, instinctively tugging at the grip, but the lich wasn't even looking him. Redcloak had sprung up from his chair; even Tsukiko had backed away from the table, her face for once devoid of its usual smugness.

"Sir," Xykon repeated mockingly, never raising his voice. Jirix tried to suck in air through his mouth. It was getting harder and harder to breathe by the second. "I thought I told you what you're supposed to call me."

"Sir, there's no need to -- "

The phalanges tightened even harder, like a crushing vice. Only the toes of his boots made contact with the floor. Dimly, Jirix heard a hollow gasping sound, like someone had wrenched intestines in and out of a body, and realized it was his own struggle for air. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't _breathe._ It was getting harder to listen, harder to receive; his hand felt disembodied as it clawed at his own neck, as if someone else was wearing his skin. Cold blossoms of pain burst in his skull.

"You're a word kind of guy, aren't you?" Xykon never took his gaze off of Redcloak. "Say the magic words, then. Or I'll _make_ your number two here eat your other eye."

For a single, awful second, Jirix thought his leader wouldn't say anything at all. His heart twisted, wrenched desperately against his chest, pounding for air --

"Lord Xykon," Redcloak said, almost calmly, "there's no need to squeeze him so hard. He may have intel on your phylactery."

The phalanges loosened, if only a little, but it was enough for breathing space. Reflexively, Jirix pried at the fingerbones, trying not to recoil at how cold and hard they were, and crashed onto the floor. It seemed like Xykon had forgotten he had even existed; the sorcerer loomed over his leader, a strange, thrumming aura pulsing from his very frame. The same hands that had strangled him now yanked Redcloak forward by the front of his cloak, knotted tightly between the fingers. 

"I'm not _deaf,_ Reddy," Xykon said, his voice almost quiet. "You have a single priority here. If I don't see you throwing in everything you got, I'll snap your little cleric's head here right off his neck. Keep on sitting on your ass, and I _will_ do the same to every living thing in the city until it's you and me again. Just like the old days. How does that sound?"

Redcloak stared back up at Xykon, his mouth flattening into a thin line.

"Didn't catch that."

"That sounds very undesirable, Lord Xykon."

The skeletal hands shoved his leader once, hard; Redcloak stumbled back a few steps, his expression wary. Xykon said nothing else; in a flash of cloth he had vanished, Teleporting into thin air, leaving behind toppled and upended chairs.

The weight of the silence surged down heavily. 

"Wow," Tsukiko finally said, her face pale from shock. " _Wow._ I haven't seen him this angry before. You really set off his alarm, do you?"

His leader was looking at the mess of papers, now sprawled all over the table. It was a while before he spoke.

"Jirix, are you able to cast fifths yet?"

Jirix rubbed at his neck, wincing at how tender the flesh was. He felt his leader already knew the answer before he even opened his mouth to reply, "N-not really, Sir."

"Then find a scroll and go to the bay sewer. Make the stone wall cover the entire width."

Jirix hesitated, his throat throbbing too painfully to speak clearly. "Sir, I thought you wanted -- "

Redcloak turned around and left the room abruptly. Tsukiko, after giving him an unrecognizable look, followed after with her wight entourage.

Jirix sat on the floor for some time, watching the light of the rift flicker across solid stone floor. It hadn't occured to him until now that his leader hadn't once asked if he was doing okay from the injuries, or if he needed healing, but he pushed the thought aside as Redcloak simply being stressed at the time. It didn't really assure him by any amount, but he wasn't in a position to complain either. Several minutes passed before he decided to climb back to his feet, his neck still raw.


	3. Chapter 3

At the end, Jirix had to go to Tsukiko's room and ask for the scroll. She had answered the door with the expression of someone that had swallowed a live demon-roach, and the scroll was thrown in his face with little ceremony. Oddly enough, she hadn't said much, apart from the usual level of disdain, and the door slam was a little more controlled than he'd expected.

Still, the logistics of the scroll winded up on him. The bay tunnel smelled like wet shit compressed over and over, the brownish water swarming up to his shins. One of the hobgoblin soldiers from Block A had taken a few levels in rogue; he asked her to inspect the stone walls for a while, a little more than concerned over the cracks spreading across individual stones. 

"No traps here, sir," she said, making a face at a piece of trash that had bubbled up to the surface. 

"Thank you. Tell the other soldiers to move."

He had used a few scrolls before. Still, he hadn't ever cast anything above fourths, even with his own abilities, and for a second he wondered what would happen if he messed up. Probably nothing. He'd simply have to go back to the tower and ask Tsukiko or his leader for another scroll, and the thought of what Redcloak might say to a waste of over a thousand gold pieces made his hands slippery. There was no need to fail. 

"Wall of Stone,"

The scroll glowed the light blue of Azure City -- Tsukiko's dweomer, Jirix realized, even as the paper vanished from his hands. A strange, magnetic force emanated from his fingers, directing it to point at the tunnel walls. The tips of his fingers tingled as he did so. Slowly, he imagined creating a wall, connecting both sides, letting it fill every pore and crack until the entire waterway would be sealed. The stone obeyed his mental command. The air shimmered grey, like a curtain of dust had settled over emptiness, and then it solidified into stone. 

The sergeant poked at the wall with the blunt end of his spear. "It holds steady, sir. How long should we wait to remove it?"

Redcloak hadn't gave any instructions on its time limit. "Maybe next week," Jirix lied to the sergeant. "Make sure no one touches it."

The sergeant hesitated. "Is this about the amulet, sir?"

No one had explicitly forbade him from saying so, but Jirix knew it was a colossally terrible idea to mention any of the phylactery's relation to Xykon. "It's important to the Supreme Leader," he said instead to the sergeant, not quite looking him in the eye. "I don't know what it's for, either."

The walk back to the tower was empty. He passed by a few empty streets, with an occasional large rat peering up at him from a barrel of overripe fruits. If the barrel had been left here, the human carrying it must have fled. A week ago he might have organized a search for the human, but now it felt pointless, really. It wouldn't help find Xykon's phylactery in any way. For a moment Jirix contemplated practicing a spell down in the alleyway, where people wouldn't wander by, but then he felt stupid for thinking it. He had firsthand witnessed the scope and power of his superiors. He thought of the lich flying, the sheer power of explosives erupting from a single bony digit, how Tsukiko could drag the bodies of dozens back from the dead. He thought of his own leader wrenching elementals of metal from another plane entirely.

It must be nice to have a lot of power. 

His feet carried him back up the stairs. He'd have to go back to his study first, check if any of the other routes could use some stonecraft -- it was almost evening, anyway, and he could pray to the Dark One for Stone Shape, at the very least. He wondered what his god thought of the whole mess. The clerics he interacted with never mentioned any hint of approval or disapproval, only the distant haze of someone always watching, sharply aware of what was happening despite not saying a single word. Maybe it was a good thing. A god wasn't supposed to clean up after their mess, after all; they were to be his servants and wielders, like an extension of his will. If there was one thing he shared with humans or elves or other demihumans, it was that they were all the same when they prayed.

In the study, Jirix carefully settled himself on the floor and closed his eyes. He remembered the Head Cleric's words: relax the mind first. Let it be free of material thoughts. He put aside the stone walls, the sewers, the amulet, and -- with some difficulty -- the flash of a red cloak, worn and ragged. Deep breaths in, slow breaths out. Let his lungs find a rhythm. It didn't matter if physical pain creeped in; the physical world would be nothing without the divine.

In, out.

Something pressed in his mind, like a mental block. It had been there ever since he had been resurrected -- and logically, he realized, he must have traveled to the goblins' afterlife, no matter how briefly. He should remember something. There was a distinct feeling of vastness, as if he had stood before a massive plane, but he couldn't remember the specifics.

This wasn't the time or place to be curious. He focused back on the praying.

Spells. He could only have so much. If he would have to patrol the routes later, he'd need more stone manipulation and defense spells. There was a high possibility of sewer monsters. A monster summoning spell would work; definitely a few cure ones here and there, in case anyone tried to stab him with a metal pole again. The orisons were last, and those he picked with ease. It felt weird, to descend into some mindless haze, to be cut at the senses, and there was, per usual, the odd feeling of something observing him the entire time. A silent spectator. 

A faint sense of unease swelled in him -- his god was there, separated by a paper-thin barrier, but he made no mode of communication. Maybe Jirix could reach out first, instead. It wouldn't hurt, and it wasn't as if he hadn't done it before, it was simply that he didn't expect any answer.

His body shaking a little, he extended his mental reach --

and for a single, heart-splitting second, fate gave him a vision.

The rise and fall of a sword -- not just any sword, but a magnificent greatsword, complete with emerald-green hilt -- descending upon -- _upon_ \--

Jirix wrenched himself out of the trance, an uncontrollable, sickening sense of panic rising furiously into his mouth. The vision had been brief, shorter than any he'd ever received, but it had been as sharply clear as the point of the blade. It didn't make sense. It shouldn't make sense. And yet, his first instinct was to climb back onto his feet, feeling the room spin a little dizzily, the torchlights blurring into an ambiguous smear. The divine knowledge of spells trickled out of his hands. 

Down the hallway. A bit up the left. The entryway was guarded by a pair of soldiers; they crossed the opening with their halberds, but unblocked it when they saw who came up the stairs. Jirix tried not to run, even when his nerves urged him to, but already he was a little out of breath. The hallway he stood in felt dimmer, somehow; less used, like something left in its own corner. The study door was plain, marked with a single rune -- of what, Jirix wasn't exactly sure -- but no other door possessed it. His mind barely comprehended that the door was slightly ajar; he opened it quickly, his mind finally catching up to his body --

"Sir, I have to tell you something -- !"

His words stopped dead straight in his throat.

Redcloak made no immediate gesture that he had even heard him come in. The Supreme Leader stood at a set of dressers, staring at himself in the mirror. Not for vanity or even scrutiny, Jirix realized, but for an immensely private scene, judging by how carefully he was touching the eyepatch. A green hand trailed down the patch, and in the dimness Jirix could see that the fingers glistened with something wet.

By any law of basic self-preservation, he should have left. He should have ran. He shouldn't have even entered the room. It must have been fear that made him open his mouth, making him stupid enough to even ask --

"Is...is everything okay, sir?"

Stupid, his mind chanted at him. Stupid, stupid, _stupid._

His leader took his time answering. When he finally turned around, with the casualness of a pedestrian, Jirix automatically took a few steps back to the door. There was absolutely no expression on his leader's face at all.

"Get out."

It was said plainly enough. Still, Jirix could feel his eyes widening, his body reflexively trying to obey the command, but his brain rooted him to his spot. His leader didn't walk closer; he simply stood there, hands loose at his sides.

"I said -- "

The crackle of magic came swiftly and suddenly; one moment the air was calm, the next moment it felt electrified, as if every particle became alive, the room shimmering and wavering slightly from the sheer intensity of power. Red dweomer crackled and writhed from Redcloak's hands, even as he stood there calmly, never raising his voice.

"Get _out._ "

A force grasped at Jirix, violently knocking him into the doorframe. He didn't need to be told twice. The door was closed behind him -- securely, this time -- and he ran out of the corridor, back into the main halls of the tower, trying to forget what he had seen in his vision, what he had seen in the study, and failing miserably on both ends.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment! :)

It was hard to track the passage of time.

It was near impossible to tell if the sun rose or fell -- all visible light emanated from the rift, flickering with its purples and reds, the sky shadowed and obscured beyond the spreading tendrils. Only the reminder of daily prayers told Jirix when dusk was reached. It must have been Day Three from the whole fiasco of the study. 

He tried not to think on it. 

Instead, he buried himsef -- a bit too literally for his tastes -- in the sewage system. Orbs of flickering light, of all sorts of hues, shimmered and wavered down in the tunnels. No one talked much. The mood hung over them, tense and somber, like a burial ceremony. The only sounds were the butts of spears clacking along the stone, or the faint thrum of magic sizzling into the air. 

One of the entryways seemed darker than the rest. Jirix tried not to wince as the sewer water rose up to his knees, making a particularly nasty slurping noise when it swished past his armour. It took a moment for his vision to adjust to Darkvision, and for the tensest of heartbeats, he thought he saw a glint of red.

It was only a wight staring back at him. Its mistress hovered over the cesspool of sewage, peering closely down at a crack in the stone. Her head snapped up when she saw Jirix.

"Oh. It's you." Tsukiko's expression fell back into neutral distaste. "Reddie's toady, huh?"

"...did he not come down there?"

"How the hell would I know? I don't keep tabs on him." Tsukiko pointed at a section of the current. "Locate Object."

The water remained calm.

"Damnit," she cursed. She turned to face Jirix. "Why don't you tell your master to get down on his knees with the rest of us? This place smells terrible."

"He's not really my -- "

"Don't care." Tsukiko wrinkled up her nose as she drifted further down the tunnel. "Still. You haven't talked to him much these days, have you?"

"Was I...supposed to?"

"You were practically attached at the hip before."

Jirix shied away from a wight's stray arm, trying to push down the flush of embarrassment that had risen in his gut. He _had_ followed Redcloak around a lot in the early days of the conquest, but that was normal. Plenty of the other clerics and soldiers had done so. He rubbed at his arm, not sure what exactly to say.

"Oh? Do I smell a fallout somewhere?"

Jirix shook his head before realizing she wouldn't be able to see him. "I -- he's probably just busy."

"With what? What else could be more important than the phylactery?"

 _The city,_ he almost wanted to say, but something about her expression made him still his tongue. Even in the dimness he could make out both of her eyes; one light blue, one simmering blue-black, both glinting almost innocently. 

"I wouldn't know," he managed out. "I'm not him."

"Yeah, I can tell."

That was probably a compliment to her. The next few minutes crawled by in silence; the smell was strong, stronger than he was used to, but it wasn't unexpected. Sewers had a tendency to smell of fetor. It must have been accumulated from the soft, decaying carcasses of dozens of creatures, from rotting undead to vermin to whatever monster had prowled down here to die. The last thought unnerved him a little; he wondered how many things watched them right now, wading knee-deep into the waters, waiting for them to be alone. He had heard horror stories from the other soldiers before. Once, they had heard someone screaming from deep within the walls, but they never found his body.

It felt a bit ridiculous to be scared. He wasn't some novice anymore, someone freshly bestowed with a white cloak -- he was a cleric, a cleric of the Dark One, one that his leader had personally resurrected from the dead --

_Why? Why did he do that -- ?_

\-- and right now there was only a simple task to accomplish. Find the phylactery. Give it back to his leader. It was no different than all the other duties he had been assigned. 

"Hey. Hey! Stop daydreaming about Reddie, will you?"

He wasn't, Jirix thought, not really. It didn't occur to him before on _why_ Redcloak had Raised him, when there was no reason to. He thought of reviving back to a dim room, the sight of his leader's bandaged, bloodied face giving away nothing at all.

Something must have happened in the time between his death and his resurrection. 

Tsukiko had paused before a split along the wall -- the crack was wider than it appeared to be, the rent spiraling into a sizable pit crunching into the stone. "You're Death Warded, are you?"

"Yeah."

"Good, 'cause you're going in the hole."

It took a moment for Jirix to process the words. Instinctively, he wanted to balk, to get away, but the wights stared back at him blankly, their expressions a sharp contrast to their mistress' growing glee.

"...what?"

It hit him then -- waves and waves of warm, disgusting smells clawed into his nostrils, his mouth, burning a path down to the depths of his guts. It felt like drinking acid and shit mixed together in one vat. He wrenched away from the whole, trying to hold in the bile rising in his throat, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. He knew the smell. He'd know it from anywhere.

"Dead hobgoblins," Tsukiko confirmed, still smiling. "I'd say the humidity down here made them decay faster."

Jirix suppressed the urge to vomit. "What did you want me to do?"

"My sweeties here -- " she gestured to her wights -- "are going to give you a lift. I know you prepared Stone Shape. Carve out the rest of the tunnel."

The alternative to arguing with her, he thought depressingly, was to join the crew of wights permanently. Cold, slimy hands lifted him up by the arms and legs, applying the perfect balance of strength and mobility for him to reach the ragged frame of the hole. It was the same degree of coldness that Xykon's fingerbones had been. Briefly he wondered what possible comfort Tsukiko could derive from them; even when his own leader was cold, he had still exuded the faint warmth of something breathing and living.

He tried not to think too hard on it. Thinking rarely got him anywhere.

The smell grew stronger in the hole. It was a tight fit, but Jirix managed to squeeze his legs under with enough flexibility to shuffle forward. Even here, Darkvision still functioned, although now the colors muted into blends of grey and black. Something damp and soft caressed his leg. 

"Stone Shape," he muttered, doing his best not to inhale too much air. 

The stone pushed outward. He shifted his hand, letting his mind loosen, carving out the route farther. Behind him, he heard Tsukiko crawl up into the tunnel.

"Found anything yet?"

"Yeah," he said quietly, his sight finally processing what he was seeing. Even without the light, the scene of half a dozen hobgoblin corpses, compressed into a tight space and smeared with blood and viscera, was hard to forget. The stains on the wall simmered a dark red. He bent down to the corpses' level, the words drying in his mouth. They had been soldiers; warriors. They deserved a proper burial.

Their weapons had still been in their hands. One of the soldiers gazed blankly back at him, a single bug crawling in and out of a ruined eyeball, a few more congregating about his tongue. There were two arrows lodged deep in his throat.

"Well, what got them? Sewer monsters? The Resistance?"

"...no." Jirix peered down closer to the arrow. "These aren't the Resistance's arrows. Light."

A pale blue orb manifested in the air, casting light across the area. The tunnel was dimly lit, its walls shimmering a dark, bruised blue -- in contrast, the arrow's fletching stood out in bright crimson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More RC later.
> 
> Also...the past few comics have been so damn good, and yet depressing. What's your thoughts?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment.

It took nearly an hour to pull out the last of the bodies, and by then the sky had gradually lightened -- if nearly imperceptibly -- with the last of Jirix's spells spent on a gentle repose. He had clipped the arrows to his belt. The air outside felt like a miracle from the stench of the sewers below, but the arrows weighed on his mind every step of the way back to the tower.

Red. Red fletching. If there was anything he knew about this city, it was that anything that could be made blue turned out so. The first thing his leader had ordered after claiming the city was to secure the armoury - there had been no shortage of azure-tinted katanas, halberds, and crossbows scattered all about the room, complete with spare armour parts and bundles of arrows. Each of them had been feathered with the same tone of blue as the walls and castle ruins. 

It _was_ possible, he thought, seeing the tower loom before him, that the Resistance had simply discovered a new batch of arrows. They always unearthed some kind of obscure weaponry; last week several soldiers had reported the presence of anarchic bardiche slashes in the corpses of three guards just outside the west post. Still, the redness of the feathers seemed to bleed into his vision, like a slow, growing puddle of blood. 

He nodded at the brace of guards posted outside the tower. As usual, the sickly silence settled in its interior; the steps creaked slightly under his weight as he made his way upward, exhaustion gradually seeping into his bones and muscles. He needed to rest. He wondered if he would dream today again - of bodies broken and littered dozens of feet beneath the earth, slowly constricted by stone.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't notice the second set of footsteps, not until he walked face-first into the person rounding the corner.

"Hey, try to be caref--" The words dried up in Jirix's mouth when he saw who he had collided into. With the stiffness of someone having their limb regenerated, his Supreme Leader knelt down to pick up a stack of fallen papers, sheet by sheet, not saying a word.

"Sir --"

Only then did his leader glance up. It was hard to tell from the eyepatch, but it seemed Redcloak looked more older than usual. Still, his expression lessened in severity, if only by a miniscule amount. "Jirix."

"That's me. Sir. Sorry." He felt stupid for saying it.

Redcloak tucked the last paper neatly back into his arms before straightening back up. "I thought you'd still be doing your sewer patrols."

If he had pockets, Jirix thought, he would be cramming his hands into them in an effort to stop his fingers from shaking. He was relieved that his leader hadn't brought up the deal of the study yet, but it weighed in the back of his mind, never fading away. "I've got, um, some information."

"And?"

"And I thought it'd be best if you knew." 

"Fine with me. I was just returning to my study." His leader started down the hallway; instinctively, Jirix followed after him, pushing down why he did so. The purple light of the rift stood at an almost surreal contrast to the greens and greys of the walls. It reminded him a bit of his god -- something comprehensible, even visible to the eye, yet born of an essence he couldn't remotely begin to understand.

The hallways, per usual, were quiet. Redcloak made no attempt at small talk, and Jirix followed his example, his tongue feeling like it was made of sandpaper. The only sounds were their boots hitting softly against the floor. He wondered if he should try saying something first, but the courage to push out words shriveled up in his gut by each passing second. He didn't know why he was so nervous, the anxiety clamping around his mouth like an iron vice. Even with the previous Leader he hadn't been so tense. Maybe it was the fact that he had firsthand witnessed what Redcloak was capable of; he thought back to the day of Azure City, and of the hundreds of oath-spirits wrenched up from the throne room, their faces eerie in their calmness.

"Hold these, will you?"

Wordlessly Jirix took the pile of papers, doing his best not to satisfy his curiosity to read them. Redcloak fished out a key from his pocket and unlocked the study door. Jirix almost coughed out his question, but settled on a calmer tone.

"Sir, isn't that risky?"

"First --" the door swung open softly, "it can only be taken off me if I'm dead. And second, only people I've willingly entrusted the key to can open the door."

"What if they were mind-controlled to open it?"

"It won't work." Redcloak took the papers back out of Jirix's arms. "The key would crumble."

For a Supreme Leader's study, it was fairly simple - Jirix tried not to pay attention to the mirror and dressers - complete with a few bookshelves, a desk, a cot, a praying mat, and a small portrait of their god. Jirix could have sworn he felt his god's gaze resting on him as he shuffled closer to the desk, watching Redcloak carefully set the papers down on its surface.

"The arrows on your belt," his leader said, sitting down on a chair. "I'll presume that you're going to tell me about them."

Jirix felt a bit embarrassed. "Yeah...I mean, yes. Sir." Mentally, he wished he could bite his tongue. He slowly unclipped one of the arrows from his belt, watching the fletching gleam crimson in the light. It was almost the same hue as his leader's cloak. "I found it at a patrol."

"That's plenty of detail to go off on."

Somewhere in his head, Jirix thought, his self-consciousness dug a deeper hole in mortification. "Me and Tsukiko found several of the soldiers' corpses in the sewer walls."

Redcloak waited, his arms folded on the desk. 

"I'm - sir, I don't know if it's just a blind guess, but - it's not an arrow we've discovered before. The fletching's red, for one, and whoever sealed up the bodies must have been high level enough." The silence continued to stretch. He felt like cotton coated his tongue. "And - and if the Resistance had spellcasters that level, then they wouldn't keep raiding the granaries for food."

"Hand me the arrow."

Redcloak inspected it. Jirix tried to decide where he should look at - the walls, maybe, or the neat, orderly stack of tomes along the shelves. At the end, he decided to watch his leader mutter a spell, surrounding the arrowhead in a red aura. 

"Poison." Redcloak placed the arrow on top of the papers. "It likely drains on strength. The soldiers might have still been alive when they were sealed up."

"...poison?"

"These arrows aren't from the armoury." Redcloak's hands tensed very slightly. "Azure City's military didn't have poison, or they would've used it against our forces."

"Then, do you know where it came -- "

"I need to identify it." Redcloak tugged out one of the papers from its stack. From where he stood, Jirix could make out what looked like a rough sketch of an - 

_Amulet_?

The picture tugged at his memory, but before he could lean in closer Redcloak had neatly folded the paper in half, depositing it in a drawer.

"Is that all you had to say?"

"...that's all, sir." Jirix didn't know why he felt so uneasy. Maybe it was the fact that his leader hadn't looked him in the eye even once in the conversation, or the fact that that the weight of the study memory hung over his head like a guillotine. It would be downright suicidial to bring it up. "I'll -- I'll get going." He turned to leave. 

"Hey."

A hand rested on Jirix's shoulder. He twisted around halfway -- from this particular angle, behind the desk, his leader looked like any other goblin. Someone normal, almost. The fingers on his shoulder felt warm, and it made Jirix feel -- uneasy, really. He couldn't exactly pinpoint what emotion his body was filled with, but it was a strange mix of confusion and delight and some deep, buried part of shame.

"I trust you." It wasn't exactly a smile, but it was more similar to one than not. For a moment Redcloak looked his age, his posture relaxed for once, and somehow it made Jirix more happy than he should on knowing that he had helped his leader do so. His leader slid his hand off of Jirix's shoulder, but the touch still lingered, like a phantom press of the skin. "Good work tonight, Jirix."


End file.
